Plus: Bill Weld goes GOP again and the moral case for capitalism.

Abaca Press/Hahn Lionel/Abaca/Sipa USA/NewscomLawyers for rapper 21 Savage are disputing federal agents' claims about the 26-year-old, who was arrested Sunday by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents. ICE said the rapper—whose real name is Shayaa Bin Abraham-Joseph—had been deceiving everyone about having Atlanta roots, was actually from the U.K., and had overstayed his immigration visa for years.

That's all false, his lawyers say. While his Wikipedia page did indeed claim he was from Atlanta, the artist didn't write the entry himself.

It's understandable why whoever did may have been confused, since 21 Savage did attend junior high and high school in Atlanta and has been here since 2005.

An ICE spokesperson told WSBTV that the arrest was related to 21 Savage's status as "a convicted felon." But the one criminal charge in the rapper's history—a 2014 arrest on drug possession charges—was expunged last September, his lawyer Charles H. Kuck said. So if that's the reason for 21 Savage's arrest, it's "based on incorrect information about prior criminal charges."

ICE is right that the artist did overstay his visa—it expired way back in 2006. But it's not exactly his fault: At the time of his coming to the U.S. and his staying past the permitted time, 21 Savage was a minor. His parents brought him here when he was 12, and then overstayed their own work visas the following year.

"Like almost two million other children, [21 Savage] was left without legal status through no fault of his own," said Kuck. He continued:

This is a civil law violation, and the continued detention of Mr. Abraham-Joseph serves no other purpose than to unnecessarily punish him and try to intimidate him into giving up his right to fight to remain in the United States.

As an adult, 21 Savage has since been trying to get his immigration status right. In 2017, he applied for a U-Visa, admitting then to his undocumented plight. The Department of Homeland Security "has known his address and his history" since then, explained Kuck.

It's unclear why ICE waited until now to make a move. But what is clear is that some initial reporting and speculation surrounding the rapper's arrest were unwarranted. This isn't a case of a criminal brazenly trying to avoid detection, but a young man paying for his parents' actions and being used as a pawn in immigration politics.

QUICK HITS

• The Senate Judiciary Committee today will consider the nomination of Neomi Rao to replace Brett Kavanaugh on the D.C. Circuit Court. A former classmate sings her praises and pleads with Democrats to leave partisan politics out of it.

• Actor Liam Neeson is facing blowback after telling an interviewer he once stalked around the city hoping to kill a random black man. Here's your periodic reminder that Neeson's biggest films—the sex-trafficking action/panic franchise Taken—are "based on a true story" that was totally fabricated.

(We all know that the movie "Taken" claimed to be "based on a true story" about sex trafficking, but the perpetrator of that lie was later found out to be a total fraud who made it all up to scam people, right?).https://t.co/Ah600D09gd

• A new study published in the Lancetfinds "that the risk of pancreatic, colorectal, endometrial, and gallbladder cancers in millennials is significantly higher than the risk Baby Boomers were facing when they were the same age."

• Only the best for our president:

President Trump's pick to lead the World Bank is Trump campaign advisor & Treasury undersecretary David Malpass, who was a Bear Stearns economist perhaps best known for his optimistic forecasts for the U.S. economy in 2007 just before the financial crisis https://t.co/wJSf8BZXaAhttps://t.co/FWTZMe3vKC

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(We all know that the movie "Taken" claimed to be "based on a true story" about sex trafficking, but the perpetrator of that lie was later found out to be a total fraud who made it all up to scam people, right?).https://t.co/Ah600D09gd

— Mistress Matisse (@mistressmatisse) February 5, 2019

am i supposed to feel glad to know this now or embarrassed for not knowing it before?

"Young adult lesbian women are twice as likely to be overweight and obese as their heterosexual peers and Black women are similarly more likely to be obese than White women," according to the grant. "Despite well documented disparities in binge eating, little is known about contributing factors in lesbian women, and in particular racial minorities."

The researchers claim society can "influence young women's eating in everyday life" and hypothesize that racism and homophobia are having an impact on minority lesbians who binge eat.

"Consistent with minority stress theories, preliminary data also suggest sexual minority stress—or the stress people from stigmatized groups are exposed to due to their marginalized social status—likely influences binge eating in lesbian women, but the role of unique minority experiences in binge eating has not been examined using EMA [mobile technology-based ecological momentary assessment]."

racism and homophobia are having an impact on minority lesbians who binge eat

This sounds like a good hypothesis. I have noticed I'm more likely to overeat on days when I'm misgendered with he / him pronouns instead of my preferred they / them. And things are even worse for minority lesbians since we have a white nationalist President who's literally trying to turn this country into The Handmaid's Tale. The oppression they experience on a daily basis must be nearly unbearable.

Rather than making yourself a healthy egg-white omelette for breakfast you opt for the cold, leftover fried chicken from last night, get fat, can't find a dude, wind up with a lesbian partner and empathize/commiserate over a bucket of fried chicken.

President Trump's pick to lead the World Bank is Trump campaign advisor & Treasury undersecretary David Malpass, who was a Bear Stearns economist perhaps best known for his optimistic forecasts for the U.S. economy in 2007 just before the financial crisis https://t.co/wJSf8BZXaAhttps://t.co/FWTZMe3vKC
— Anna Massoglia (@annalecta) February 5, 2019

The article put "self defense" in scare quotes. As in, maybe he didn't kill the mountain lion with his bare hands in self defense. You know, like he was cruising around for a mountain lion to battle to the death, bare handed.

Joshua Trump, a sixth-grade student from Wilmington, Del., who is not related to the president, drew headlines last year after his parents went public to share stories of the abuse they said he had suffered because of his last name.

"They curse at him, they call him an idiot, they call him stupid," his mother, Megan Trump Berto, told ABC affiliate WPVI at the time.

The issue has been ongoing for years, his parents said. They even pulled Joshua out of school for home schooling at one point but decided to enroll him in middle school with the hope that the bullying would decrease. It didn't.

"He said he hates himself, and he hates his last name, and he feels sad all the time, and he doesn't want to live feeling like that anymore, and as a parent that's scary," Trump Berto said.

Haha. This means that (1) Trump can use those emergency funds to build more border fence (2) the media has been trying to hide exactly how Trump would do it and he knew exactly where the money was coming from (3) Congress already assigned the money which makes it Constitution (4) Trump would veto any law to cut off those funds and Congress cannot get a veto-proof majority of 2/3.

Of course her's is more youthful. I have to remember all 54 Presidents, who won all 52 Super Bowls, how many rounds go in an M1 Garand clip, how to use '3 on a tree' and 'four on the floor' transmissions, how to replace fuzes and lightbulbs, and wiring across more than half a decade of electrical hardware. She has to remember which day of the month it is and this week's grocery list that's hanging on the fridge.

When are we going to see the articles about how whether or not Fairfax is guilty of sexual assault his forceful response to the allegation shows that he doesn't have the temperament to serve as governor?

Where are the "boofing truthers" with their "believe all women"? ENB you're a conspiracist with your "prostitute holds the key to Russia Fever Dreams" and "I don't care what the video shows that kid smirked or something"? Why aren't you conspiracizing like you do?

Oh, Libertarian Bill Weld, we hardly knew ye... The former governor of Massachusetts and 2016 Libertarian Party vice presidential nominee has returned to the Republican party.

LOL Weld the Geld.

I bet Geld's fellow gelding Matt Welch feels angry, betrayed, and more than a little stupid right now. He moved a lot of electrons around over the last couple of years telling us all how great Geld is.

It definitely makes you wonder if a global average temperature actually matters or if it's just mankind creating a guesstimate average to drive their own personal agenda's.

It seems the "think globally, act locally' meme is dead since China does a ton of our manufacturing now. I guess after the greens got their NIMBY policies enacted they realized that they had run out of things to be shrill about, so now their goal is exterminating mankind as they are the root of all evil.

Sounds 'sustainable', right? Never mind that entropy abounds, so 'sustainable' is and always has been nothing but a cute lie.